cultivated the most fertile portions of the island. For nearly twenty years after the discovery Cuba was left in peace; but when the settlements were founded, the barbarities of Haiti and the Bahamas were re-enacted, the Indians were enslaved, and reduced to such a condition of misery that hundreds killed themselves in despair. It was not many years, in truth, before they had entirely disappeared, having been murdered, directly and indirectly, by the despicable Spaniards.

To fill their places, the Spaniards imported negro slaves from Africa, who were treated, like the Indians, with excessive cruelty, but who were more tenacious of life than the unfortunate aborigines, and their descendants constitute a large proportion of the Cuban population at the present time. One of the largest and wealthiest of Spain's islands beyond the sea, Cuba early became a prey to Spanish adventurers and English freebooters. For more than three hundred years, except for a short period in 1762, Cuba has been in the clutches of Spain, her lands cultivated until within a few years by slave labour, her revenues plundered by rapacious officials. Gradually there has grown up a native population, distinct from the "peninsular" Spanish-a population speak

ing the same language as the immigrants from the home country, yet differing from them, inasmuch as about half the islanders have mulatto or negro blood in their veins, and are looked upon and treated by the "peninsulars" as inferiors.

During more than three hundred and fifty years the natives patiently submitted to oppression and extortion in every form; but the political disquietude in Spain was soon reflected in her colonies, and long after the loss of Mexico, Central and South America to the motherland, Cuba attempted to break the chains that bound her to Spain. There was an uprising of the blacks in 1844, and in 1851 a filibustering raid under General Lopez, a Venezuelan, who was killed in his third invasion of the island, as well as several filibusters from the United States. An offer to purchase the island, shortly after, made to Spain by the President of the United States, met with no favour, as Spanish pride and interests were against it.

The most serious revolt against the Spaniards occurred in 1868, consequent upon the distracted condition of Spain during the revolutionary proceedings which exiled Isabella II. The leader of this revolt, Carlos de Cespedes, was subsequently elected president of a republic which the insurgents finally set up, and

for ten years, during which at least seventyfive thousand Spanish soldiers perished in the island, and the natives suffered every conceivable indignity from the "peninsulars," the war was waged, only to be concluded by a deceitful promise of reforms which were never granted. General Martinez Campos, then the Captain-General of Cuba, and authorized representative of Spain, signed the "capitulation" of El Zanjon in 1878, by which the insurgents were induced to surrender, under a pledge that their demands should be acceded to; but Señor Canovas, then Prime Minister of Spain, refused to recognise this treaty, and so all their terrible sacrifices came to naught. It was but natural that the patriots should feel resentful; but they remained quiescent for seventeen years, at the end of which period, in February, 1895, the long-smouldering embers of revolt again burst into flame.

WHILE it may be difficult to write a dispassionate account of a war in which the sympathies of the writer have been ardently enlisted on one side as against the other, and to paint a picture which lacks the perspective afforded by the lapse of time, yet an attempt will be made to present such an account and such a picture as will stand the test of unprejudiced criticism.

The object of the insurgents during the ten years' war was to secure reforms in the national administration, actual representation. in the Cortes, and amelioration of their intolerable condition. They secured nothing, for though eventually granted the privilege of representation, in 1878, this privilege was nullified by the representatives being mainly selected from the ranks of the peninsulars them

selves! And now, in 1895, having in mind the duplicity by which they had been tricked, the Cuban patriots aimed at nothing less than independence! This idea of actual and complete severance from Spain they have consistently persisted in from the very first; and when the end came, finding them impoverished and starving, their ranks decimated by war and disease, they still clung to the rock of independence, upon which they purposed to found their long-cherished republic.

Dominated by this grand idea, animated by a resolve that nothing could shake, the leaders of the revolt of 1895 were mainly those who had survived the war of 1868-'78, such as the brothers Maceo, Gomez, and Garcia. The veteran Gomez was their recognised chief, and under him they withstood the assaults of Spanish arms for more than three years, the number of Spanish soldiers at the termination of the struggle amounting to more than one hundred thousand. Spain sent to Cuba her best commanders and the flower of her soldiery, many thousands of whom, fighting the cause of despotism against that of freedom, fell victims to Spanish barbarities. The redoubtable General Campos, the " pacificator" of the former war, was sent out with ample means and placed in supreme control; but, though with one hun